Alumni updates

Joshua Calbert, a graduate of Fremont High of Oakland, has signed a letter-of-intent for Division II powerhouse Central Missouri’s Track and Field team. Calbert, who picked Central Missouri over Louisiana Tech, New Mexico and Texas-El Paso, is the first track athlete to be recruited from the west coast to the Warrensburg, Missouri college.Continue Reading →

Our resident OAL expert Mr. Durkin is off this week, so I’ll pinch-hit for him with this bit of news. As Jimmy posted last week, Davone Bess, Miami Dolphins receiver and Skyline High grad, got some of his NFL buddies together to play a basketball game against the Oakland Police Department in the hopes of raising some money for the OAL.

Yesterday, Bess’s charity organization, the Bess Route Foundation, gave a $1,500 equipment grant to Skyline High as a result of the successful event over the weekend. It also gave $1,000 to the Laney College football program.

And, in case anyone was wondering and didn’t get a chance to go, the NFL team edged the OPD squad in the final seconds to get the win. Congrats to everyone who went out.

I saw this on ESPN.com and had to share. Local high school hoops fans will recognize the star of this video spoof as De La Salle grad and current UC Santa Barbara basketball player Justin Joyner. If you like the Old Spice Guy, check this out!Continue Reading →

Ran across some local alumni news to share. Oregon State issued a press release this week to announce that Oakland Tech grad Fred Thompson and De La Salle grad Terron Ward, both of whom grayshirted this season for the Beavers, have been added to the roster.

Also of note is true freshman Troy Whalen, a long snapper from De La Salle, has also been added to the roster. Whalen’s a walk-on.

The major league debut with the Oakland A’s of Bishop O”Dowd product Tyson Ross brought back a lot of good memories for me of the 2005 season. I covered a lot of O’Dowd baseball that season — pretty much every game of significance — and so I saw a lot of Tyson Ross. He was one of those players back then who you could tell had a pretty good chance of making it to the big leagues and I’m honestly not all that surprised by his rapid ascension and his success. Looking back through some stuff I dug up this story I wrote about O’Dowd’s 2005 HAAL finale against Castro Valley, which was a game to determine the league champion. What makes the article even more interesting to read is that it speaks of Ross’ showdown with Jason Castro, another player who will likely soon make his major league debut. Castro is a top-50 prospect (he’s No. 31 on mlb.com’s list) and is considered the Astros’ catcher of the future. And considering the fact the Astros may be the worst team in the majors, it may not be long before he’s called up.

The Kyle Reed phenomenom at San Jose State continues as he was named this week’s WAC Offensive Player of the Week. The McClymonds graduate and transfer from Cal completed 20-of-25 passes for 178 yards and scored three rushing touchdowns in San Jose State’s 35-10 win over San Diego State.